Schools

[crunchydog]

Anyone doing snack machines in schools? I don't have any on my route, seems iffy since they have to be turned off before school and  during school, around my area.

[AngryChris]

I have a few teachers' lounges.  They aren't good.  I have heard of success in cafeterias IF you can keep them from beinf vandalized and have them on 5 minutes before the final bell.

[Poplady1]

Schools do well with snacks and drinks.  Not sure what state you are in and you would need to check.  If the machines are allowed to be on during the time the students are in class you have to have 100% healthy items unless your state has some other rule.  In most States that seems to be the rule.  If you want to sell National Brand products you will need to have the off during he school hours.  Most vendors just use a landscape timer which you want to tape to the back of the machines so the students don't reset it.

[Southeast Treats]

Ditto on the teachers, usually very slow.  Student vending can be great but a lot of hoops to jump thru, and vandalism or break ins can make even a great location a money loser.  If the school is approaching you about vending, ask a LOT of questions, especially ask what happened with previous vendors.  Also be prepared for them to ask for a big commission. Should be some info on federal school guidelines in the download section of the forum.

[CapitalCityVendingLLC]

We have a good bit of teacher's lounges.  By no means are they great accounts but we don't have much money tied up in them.  They are our older machines, we slam them full with good dated product and then return 3.5-6 weeks later and collect 100-150 dollars per machine.  We have them priced right and don't pay any commissions.  They aren't going to be your best accounts but we don't mind having them.  They slow up during the summer and Christmas time so that allows us to take an extra day or two off during those times.  There are a couple of our teachers lounges that we know the kids sneak into and raid from time to time.  We put some extra candy/chocolate in those.  

As for having machines that kids can get into, we have two schools left.  One school used to do 12-15k a year before the health rules came 2-3 years ago.  We had the machines priced fairly high and paid them 10%.  Now that same account does about 3k a year with the healthy product.  We no longer pay them after we explained the situation.  We try and juggle our stales but we have a decent bit.  The other school we have is a private one so they don't have to adhere to all the government rules and regulations.  That account still does pretty well for a small private school.  It does about 8k a year.  

 

I would try and look for a private school or two.  No matter where you live, there is always a private school or two in each town.  

[MNvending]

I've got 2 small high schools, no teachers lounges. One of the locations I have the machines set up on timers to be in shutdown mode 2 times a day. The biggest problem is all the snacks have to be "healthy". You can get a pretty decent variety of school approved stuff from Vistar. But the problem is the students only like a handful of the snack options that you can use and the they get tired of buying the same bag of chips every day. You can try to offer them different options but it's usually a losing proposition. Unless it's a name brand item like doritos, baked lays, or something that they've heard of before, they usually just won't buy it. I've got one of the snack machines set up with 60 bags of baked flamin hot cheetos, and it almost sells out by the end of every week. I also put in 30 Sweet and spicy RF doritos, they sell quite a bit too. Some of the other items sell here and there, but other than that they're pretty much just for looks. The diet sodas get hit pretty hard. We sell 3-4 cases a week. If you can get into a school I would recommend it, there are some downfalls but overall they will make money.  I'd also like to add that both of my schools don't serve an official lunch everyday so that would almost certainly cut into sales if they did.